“There comes a time when audiences naturally gravitate toward a pretty cool experience, and then marketers will tend to say, ‘Oh, look at that thing that everyone naturally wanted. How do we make a way to artificially communicate our brand message through that naturally-occurring experience?’” Mr. Schafer said on the latest episode of the WSJ Media Mix podcast. Marketers tend to like the shiny new object.

Mr. Schafer said the game, where users go on the hunt in the real world to catch “pocket monsters,” will stoke marketer interest in creating experiences using augmented reality, a technology that superimposes digital images into one’s field of vision. Interest in virtual reality may also get a lift among advertisers. But do consumers actually want brands messing with the burgeoning space?

“Consumers are inevitably going to have a choice between a beautiful piece of content made by a filmmaker—and there are increasingly more filmmakers who want to make that kind of immersive entertainment—or an immersive commercial,” he said.

One new technology that marketers do need to focus on right now is Snapchat, Mr. Schafer said. Deep Focus is one of the creative agencies that Snapchat has tapped as a specialist in creating ads that work well on the vertical video app.

“Just about every brand does, in fact, need a Snapchat strategy, because they’ve matured as an advertising platform,” he said.

Mr. Schafer did raise doubts about the scores of media companies that have created custom content studios to work directly with brands in shaping articles and videos that look like editorial work. Publishers ranging from the
New York Times
to BuzzFeed to The Wall Street Journal all have units dedicated to working with marketers, and a big question in the ad world is whether those efforts undercut traditional ad agencies that brands work with.

Mr. Shafer said that many publisher content studios won’t work out.

“When a publisher makes branded content, they’re not necessarily meant to sell things. They are meant to drive views or get people to share things. The closer you get to the things people want—surprise, surprise—often the further it gets from what the brand actually wants to sell,” he said. “If they get held to the same scrutiny as an ad campaign from an agency, they often fall short. And that’s the unsustainable part.”

CONTENT FROM OUR SPONSOR

Schedule delays, budget overruns, and scope creep can put projects at risk, even when formal project management methodologies are in place. Mitigating such challenges may take an approach that focuses on using analytics to sense threats and steer course corrections as projects unfold. Using the project management office as a change platform, enabled by analytics and digital technologies, also can help better execute initiatives across a business.

Please note: The Wall Street Journal News Department was not involved in the creation of the content above.